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Friday, 1 May 2015

So Intimately Entwined

(This story, in a much shorter form and under
the title The Crack of Dawn, was initially published in Denis’ first
short story collection, Bearing all Gods and Goddesses,published
by www.independencejones.com.)

Because the dark side and the bright side are so intimately entwined
dawn begins always in utter darkness, being first announced only by birdsong. Marlena
Geiger always awoke to this first song and duly felt the sun rise within her,
especially so today, the first of her retirement. Saying a quick Protestant
prayer of thanks for another morning she would then have liked to sleep in. But
as usual she sat up in bed and peeked out through the venetians.

Thoroughly dark and peaceful,
the perfect time to begin the daily chores of her new, free life. She then
allowed herself to fall back onto her pillow, scenting the summer air through the
window promising her that her life was now completely under her own dominion,
the twittering promising anything that she set her mind to. Almost on the verge
of sleep again she sat up suddenly: seize the day!

But there was a problem to
attend to first.

She got up, dressed, and went
to have a look outside the front door.

Again the bowl was still
mostly full of kibble: her missing cat had not returned. Naturally, she became a
tad more anxious, today being the third since His Imperial Majesty had
absconded. But, then again, He had made His choice, and Marlena would only really
want Him back if He chose to be with her. Again.

And so, after cooking and eating
breakfast, she was thinking fondly of how her garden was far more trustworthy.

*

She began her chores with the watering, and soon found something which
always infuriated her. It was a surprise: several bushes of catnip. They were
planted surreptitiously at the back of the garden. What made it worse was the
fact that it must be a gift from a stranger, as all those who knew her knew how
she hated surprises. Any sort of surprise.

She would have to rip it out,
and maybe dismember it too. And to teach the gifting lout(s) a lesson she would
pile the butchered bushes on her front lawn as a clear example of what she
thought of their nasty generosity. Whoever the culprit(s) was/were obviously
did it to spite her first day of retirement. Funny, she didn’t think she had
any enemies.

She set to the task with a
bound, eager to repulse the affront with all of her might.

Soon the bushes were uprooted, and wildly
strewn about her feet. She felt like jumping on each sorry looking offering
gleefully. Best though to save her energy and really demolish it with the shears.
That’ll show the lout(s)!

And when she had almost
reduced the pile of catnip to flakes and chopped, small stems she heard a
familiar sound from behind her.

It was Pepper, her black cat.

Marlena was overjoyed and had
always suspected His Imperial Majesty would return, being trained as He was. She
brought Him inside to be fed something special and temporarily forgot about the
proffered catnip.

*

When her son returned home from work that afternoon he found Marlena in
the garden moving the scarecrow onto a pile of chopped greenery on the front lawn.
Vaughn had split with his wife of fifteen years about three months ago now and
seeing as she had sole custody of the two children, and consequently the
marital home, Vaughn was temporarily thrown back to living with his mother in
Newtown until he could find a place of his own, in a tight renters’ market.
Mind you he was learning to relove Newtown’s bohemianism, Sydney’s jewel he
thought, in the brighter crown that was Aus: surely God had made such another
happy nation, albeit in a parallel universe? And maybe he could stay in Newtown
permanently after all; his single mother might well enjoy the company.
Something to think about.

‘Did you find my gift,’
Vaughn asked, after having parked his car and walking up to his mother, looking
somewhat alarmed. There was nothing to suggest that the chopped greenery was
his gift of the catnip but Vaughn was well aware that his mother absolutely
loathed surprises. He had certainly informed her that he was going to get the
bushes but perhaps his mother was having a senior moment, or, now that he
thought of it, she was deliberately telling him that she wanted nothing of his
freeloading gifts. Marlena paused in her work, and waited before replying:

‘That was from you?’

‘Who else? Remember, I told you last week that I was
going to buy something for Pepper.’

Now she remembered.

‘Darling… I’m sorry, I forgot.
I thought it was from a stranger, or an unknown enemy, a surprise… I tore it
out...’

Not unexpectedly Vaughn
wasn’t pleased, and could find no way to allay his suspicions that his mother
was perhaps after all giving him some sort of hint, albeit subconsciously. Maybe
she wanted to continue her single, lone domicile, with absolutely no-one else
to look after except Pepper, who managed to look after Himself anyway. It might
even be best to put up with a friend from tomorrow night if his mother really
didn’t wish him to disturb the four and a half decades of her quietly and contentedly
living on her own. Well, living with His Imperial Majesty.

Marlena promised him she
would buy some more catnip. Vaughn, always being a straightforward person,
asked his mother if she wished him to move out sooner than anticipated, to
regain her peaceful home, and had destroyed his gift as she wished to destroy
his noisy occupancy. Marlena was adamant that she was not in the slightest
perturbed by his presence but it still took him a few days to end his sulk.

Marlena bought some new
catnip bushes the following morning and Pepper naturally fell in love with them
and has resolved not to leave anymore, entwining Himself with the green goodness
whenever the fey mood takes Him. If only life were that simple for the rest of
us.

~

If you've been enjoying Denis' stories here his previous such stories, from September 2013 to February 2015, are also available as a Kindle book, Amongst the Ways of God, at http://amzn.to/1IcruuX, which also includes several completely new ones. You may also enjoy his debut novel, This Mirror in Me, which tells the story of how Tonia achieves her life's fundamental aim of having her home as a social hub, by staring at herself in the mirror. It is also available as a Kindle book at http://amzn.to/1gXGF9h. Denis also has a short non-fiction book available, King Street Blues, which is an encouraging tale of Denis' willfully chosen five years of homelessness in the inner cities of Sydney and Melbourne. It too is available as a Kindle book at http://amzn.to/1xwiVGb. If you don't have a Kindle you can download the Kindle app for free onto your smartphone, tablet, or computer through your local app store.